20 Ghanaian Immigrants Deported From Spain

Twenty Ghanaian illegal immigrants were on Wednesday deported from Spain with about a dozen escorts and officials on board a chartered aircraft.

The immigrants, whose ages ranged between 25 and 35 years, said they got to the European country by road from northern Africa after paying between 600 and 800 dollars to linkmen.

An official of the Spanish Embassy in Accra who met the deportees at the airport said they would be given some allowance and then handed over to Ghanaian Immigration officials.

The Embassy said about 200 more Ghanaians were being screened at Feturvuntura Camp in Spain after which they would be deported home. Mohammed Aminu, 24, who hails from Kumasi, said he left Accra two years ago by road through Niger to Libya where he worked for his passage money of about 800 dollars.

"From Libya, I went to Algeria and continued to Morocco where I met a connection man, and upon paying the money he handed me over to his linkmen in Western Sahara, who also helped me to cross the Strait of Gibraltar to Spain," he disclosed.

Aminu said he was arrested upon entry into Spain and sent to camp. Another deportee, 25-year-old Emmanuel Yaw Effah, who hails from Nkoranza in Brong Ahafo, said he went through Mali to Algeria and continued to Western Sahara, where he paid 600 dollars and was ferried to Spain.

"In all, I spent about five months on road to Spain, just to be arrested and kept in a camp where I spent about a month before the deportation." He said often, many unfortunate Ghanaians never made it to Spain because their boats capsized at sea.

He did not rule out another attempt, when asked whether he would embark on a similar journey. "May be I will organize myself and see whether I can go back." Like the two, others have admitted that they had made several attempts to get to Spain but were each time arrested and deported.